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New UK Hospital at Home Society to hold its first virtual conference co-organised by Warwick researcher

Promoting the increasingly recognised alternative to in-patient care, the newly established UK Hospital at Home Society is holding its first virtual conference on 8th October, co-organised by a University of Warwick researcher who will also contribute to the conference with a discussion on Point of Care diagnostic tests in the home and care home.

Set up in August 2020, this new professional organisation supports and encourages the growth of acute care at home for patients who would otherwise be admitted to hospital.

The UK Hospital at Home Society is an invaluable resource for NHS practitioners, healthcare managers, policy makers, and caregivers who wish to provide multi-disciplinary treatment to people in their own homes and care homes—placing patients’ needs and wellbeing at the very heart of their care. Patients and caregivers can become members for free.

Successfully established as a part of international healthcare practice for decades, Hospital at Home care (HaH) is proven to be a cost-effective means of putting patient comfort and safety first, reducing their risk of hospital-related infections, encouraging independence and improving continuity of care.

As the population increases alongside the demand for hospital beds, HaH is also becoming increasingly popular in the UK, where it has been successfully implemented to provide coordinated, integrated care to patients at home.

The challenge of COVID-19 has shown that we need to provide acute medical care in settings outside the traditional hospital, in order to protect vulnerable housebound people and to ensure patients in care homes are able to receive acute medical intervention without needing to go into hospital.

Professor Dan Lasserson, of Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick, is one of the founder members of the UK Hospital at Home Society and is part of the organising team for its inaugural conference, which is now fully booked. He is leading a session on the use of Point of Care diagnostic tests in the home and care home, and how they can be used to support acute medical care decisions as an alternative to hospital admission.

Professor Lasserson said :"Health and care systems in the UK need to increase their capacity to provide credible alternatives to acute hospital admission. This will contribute to system resilience in the acute care pathway as we respond to the challenge of winter pressure and COVID-19."

National Clinical Director for NHS Scotland Professor Jason Leitch CBE comments: “Hospital at home represents a new opportunity in healthcare to deliver the care people need in the place that suits them best, reducing harms and displacement. For many with complex problems this approach represents a way to address safety and person centredness in parallel. I am excited to see this society established and its ambitions to promote safe, person-centred acute care and hopefully shift the way healthcare is delivered in the future.”

The UK Hospital at Home Society aims to raise awareness of the patient and healthcare provider benefits that HaH can offer as well as benchmarking best practices and providing practical advice for setting up hospital-at-home care and integrating HaH with specialist services.

Professor Sasha Shepperd, Professor of Health Services Research at the University of Oxford said: “Hospital at Home comes in various forms, and is being tried and tested in many countries to help shape the provision of acute specialist out-of-hospital healthcare. Establishing a UK wide Hospital at Home Society is welcome, it will provide a sound base to co-ordinate innovative care models, promote learning and research in this area .”

The organisation also updates members on the latest policy initiatives and evidence-based research into Hospital at Home care.

At its virtual conference, which is free to members and will take place between 11.30am and 3.30pm on 8th October, policymakers, clinicians, researchers and service providers from all over the world will share their challenges, successes, and best practice experiences of HaH. Presentations will include:

● Things I wish I’d known before starting HaH

● Growing your own team for HaH

● Point of care diagnostic tests - bloods and ultrasound

● Snapshots from different HaH services

● Poster abstracts & recorded presentations

Conference: For more information on the conference see: https://www.hospitalathome.org.uk/conference-2020 Please note that the conference is now fully booked.

Membership: The UK Hospital at Home Society welcomes membership enquiries from students and healthcare professionals. https://www.hospitalathome.org.uk/membership-purchasing

Speakers: A comprehensive list of the conference speakers is available HERE https://www.hospitalathome.org.uk/meet-the-speakers

NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information please visit https://www.hospitalathome.org.uk

And to request an interview or to enquire about case studies, please contact: HospitalatHomeUK@gmail.com

8 October 2020

University of Warwick press office contact:

Peter Thorley

Media Relations Manager (Warwick Medical School and Department of Physics) | Press & Media Relations | University of Warwick
Email: peter.thorley@warwick.ac.uk 

Mob: +44 (0) 7824 540863